If You Think Things Are Dismal Here For Churches….

Look north to Canada. There, Baptist Churches are closing in droves.

AS CHRISTIANS prepare for Easter, many congregations face difficult times — dwindling numbers, decaying buildings, even vandalism. Patty Mintz, features editor with NovaNewsNow.com, writes about how Baptist congregations in the Annapolis Valley are dealing with these challenges. “There was a stage where along the Fundy shore, there was a Baptist Church every 10 miles,” Acadia archivist Pat Townsend told Ms. Mintz. Now, she said, 75 Baptist churches in Annapolis and Digby counties are closed and used in other ways. For example, a plain church with gothic windows in Brooklyn is now a barn. “We know that many churches are going to close,” Ms. Townsend said. “They can’t survive in these really small communities.” The Baptist church in Falkland Ridge, a community of 10 to 15 houses, is an exception for now. Ms. Townsend said the one surviving member of the congregation continues to maintain the little church even though it’s been years since a service has been held there.

Will this be the future of Baptist Churches here one day? If the level of commitment continues to decline, perhaps so.

Good Friday

Join us at noon Friday for our Annual Good Friday Service.

The Answer is Yes

Click to enlarge the picture to see the question:

Easter isn’t about those things.  It’s about the resurrection of Christ.

Association Workshop

All are invited to the Association Workshop scheduled for April 22.  The details are here.

You’re Invited…

To the 55th Wedding Anniversary of Peggy and Lloyd Lowe- April 12th from 1-4 p.m. at Rockwood United Methodist Church.

More From the History of the Association

The minutes of the 1955 Annual Meeting note- in the Social Services Report-

Juvenile delinquency is growing at a rapid speed.  Parents are expecting Sunday School teachers to raise their boys and girls.  Many of them are given show money and sent out at night.  Many of them are given the family car to roam at will unchaperoned.   When the minister takes his stand against such destruction, he becomes very unpopular.  Preachers, in some instances, have been known to advocate many socials that lead to this blinding sin.  I have known deacons in the church to advocate turning our young people loose without a chaperone.  If all ministers will be led by the Spirit of Christ, this can and will be slowed down greatly.

 Their interest in behavioral and ethical correctness will be lost on many of our day but their intention was to preserve the purity and chastity of a generation.  If their example were still followed perhaps we would have fewer teen pregnancies and fewer abortions.  Interest in history, you see, isn’t simply arcane interest in an irrelevant past but a desire to learn where others have erred and succeeded so that we might avoid their errors and model their successes.

The ‘Good Old Days’ Weren’t Always That Good

In 1953 - 8,258 people were enrolled in Sunday School in all the Churches of the Big Emory Association but only 2,632 attended regularly. That’s a remarkably small percentage. Churches then, as now, struggled to convince members to participate fully. And while we sometimes imagine that things were ‘better’ in the ‘good old days’ the facts demonstrate that things were not quite that good. The Church has always needed more committed members. Even back in the 50’s. And as now as well.

Sad News

Sadie’s sister Eileen passed away overnight.  Please remember the family.

A Fun Bit From The History of the Association

I mentioned previously that I’m working on a History of the Big Emory Association and I discovered an interesting bit from 1938 that I feel like passing along.

Included in the minutes of that year (193 is the report from the ‘Church Music’ committee - which wrote

‘Church music consists of the following: (1) proper musical instrument (organ or piano); (2) Trained band of singers in harmony with God’s will. It would be well for the choir to be elected by church. (3) A consecrated song leader, who is a Christian and member of the Church; (4) Gospel hymns selected from religious books. I am sorry to find so few of our churches equipped with church music as defined above.’

The committee went on in its report to lament the fact that so many churches were using ‘modern song books’ instead of proper hymnals! One is forced to wonder, as an aside, what they would think of the ‘music’ performed in many churches today!

The issue of proper music in the Church continued to occupy the ‘Music Committee’ that in 1939 and they felt compelled to recommend to the Association that

‘… the churches of Big Emory Association discard the cheap song books with their cheeky and ragtime music and replace them with our regular standard hymnals’.

Week of Prayer for Home Missions

Remember to pray for the Missionaries on your prayer guide this week!